Expected Behaviour

I make it a rule with regard to dealings on a personal level:  never get angry at someone for displaying expected behaviour.  Get annoyed, get disappointed, get sad, but never lose your temper.  So it is with today's cancellation of the Air Canada strike.  This Conservative government is the most business-friendly administration in Canadian history.  The owners are firmly in control of the machinery of the state, and they're using it in the way that is, unfortunately, expected of them.  Suppress costs (especially labour costs) in order to maximize profits; it's the neo-liberal paradigm, and Harper is, as I firmly pray to nameless gibbering gods in the dead of night, the peak of neo-liberalism in Canada.

6,800 Air Canada flight attendants rejected two deals made between Air Canada and the union that represents the attendants, CUPE.  The real sticking point was Air Canada's plan to create a low-cost airline to hop between various hot-climate tourist destinations.  The wage structure at the new subsidiary airline would have paid out at the top level a whopping 25% less, and would caused route overlaps that would result in lessened job security.  The starting salary of an Air Canada flight attendant is only $18,000 to begin with, which as anyone with even a modicum of self-honesty knows is far, far below the poverty line.  Even the offered 9.3% increase would make that $19,674 - just enough to live in your parent's basement on.
CUPE's gains were pretty weak, compared to the loss of job security and earning potential; the union did not have the confidence of the members.  The first offer did little for them, and the second one removed a number of concessions that the airline had originally given to fringe items.  So, what is left to them but striking?

Enter the Sun King and Parliament.  Rumour has been abounding for some time that if the flight attendants went on strike the Conservatives would implement back-to-work legislation.  They only have the right to strike until they try to, and then they don't, amirite?  Well, even the (rumoured) threat of a wildcat strike has been smothered.  Today the federal government asked the Canadian Industrial Relations Board to determine whether or not Air Canada flight attendants constituted an "essential service".  Specifically, "whether any services need to be maintained, in the event of a strike or lockout, to prevent an immediate and serious danger to the safety or health of the public".  Until the CIRB comes to a decision on this "question", there will be no strike, on pain of decertification.  It is a transparent ploy by the Harper government to force the matter into arbitration, where the airline will likely gain significant concessions from the union, and flight attendants will likely end up worse off for it.  Air Canada stands to gain, of course, and from a hand-in-glove corporate-state marriage, that's just expected behaviour.

#OccupyToronto on October 15th.

Then This Happened

Saskatoon: Bible Belt North

Meet Maurice Vellacott.  He's the Conservative MP for Saskatoon-Wanuskewin, a riding close by Saskatoon-Humboldt, represented of course by noted Harper-basher and women's-rights-denier Brad Trost.  Vellacott shares his fellow MP's views on Planned Parenthood, the international non-profit dedicated to sexual education, reproduction rights, and generally helping the poor of the earth to make good decisions when it comes to their sexual health.  The International Planned Parenthood Foundation offers a diverse array of programs and educational services, all of which, in the stunted intellectual capabilities that Saskatoon is apparently offering the nation, equal out to mean "abortion".  It's the sort of disingenuous nonsense that the Tea Party members of the American Republican party have been spouting, sent north and given a good ol' prairie boy packaging.

Paul Bell, a spokesperson for IPPF, states unequivocally that funding received from the Canadian government does not and will not be used to fund abortion-related services and education in countries where such practices are illegal.  Vellacott, of course, calls them lying liars with burning pants, claiming at the language used in the press release is "deceitful" and that IPPF is trying to "con" the Conservatives into funding their evil baby-killing practices.  He goes on to say that he imagines them fleeing back to their glittering modern abortion multiplexes and laughing maniacally, tenting their fingers with schemes gleaming in their eyes.  Quoth he:  "It exposes what this abortion giant is surreptitiously trying to achieve worldwide".  In further news, Vellacott thought that that Onion article was an eye-opening experience.

It's a depressingly familiar cycle that really gained strength since the dawn of neo-liberalism.  A progressive individual or organization says something rational using an argument appealing to logic.  A reactionary proceeds to sneer through an attack on said argument, building up the opponent to be an Other with malicious intent and implying high crimes and misdemeanors - an argument based largely on emotion.  Appeals to ersatz populist ideas about morals and religion play well in the American political scene, but until the rise of the Reform Party in the early 1990s it wasn't a major factor in our elections.  I think Harper is politically savvy enough to realize that this is the public opinion of a minority of his party (and of the country as a whole) but the fact that these people are elected officials in 2011 (and part of a majority government) is odious.  The people of Canada made this decision decades ago.  Has something changed so significantly that we need to revisit this decision?

I'm Starting To See A Pattern

Sometimes I feel like I'm living in the political version of the cliched podunk town on the edge of nowhere.  All the big fads of America show up in regurgitated form months later.  Mandatory minimum sentences?  The U.S. has been there, done that, paid way too much for the t-shirt. Now Saskatoon-Humboldt MP Brad Trost (the generic white farm boy pictured above) wants to import another "issue" that was trendy months ago:  funding for Planned Parenthood!  Yes, the favourite bugaboo of the Sarah Palins and Michelle Bachmans of the American jetset now has it's very own corn-fed Canadian Champion!

Sweet Zombie Jesus, this is who you people voted in?  No wonder it's all starting to resemble Canadian television in the 1980s.  It's the Degrassi version of the Republican Party.

Trost states in a CBC interview that the government (his Conservative government) needs to "take a position that's at least moderate, rather than the extreme left position that we're taking".  Ha ha!  Get it?  It's extremely left wing to have legal, protected abortion!  Trudeau was a secret Trotskyist!  It's funny because it's what these people actually believe!  


The International Planned Parenthood Foundation, you may recall, was accused some months ago by U.S. Senator John Kyl of being an organization who's activity is 90% abortions.  It was a crock then and it's a crock now.  The government chose to continue funding it's annual $6 million to the IPPF and Trost got his Prairies up in a bunch about it.  Harper's government has repeatedly stood against abortion on the international stage but has continued to tacitly support it's existence domestically, likely because Harper is far too smart to be caught up in a political non-starter like that.  Trost, the poor trusting noble rural man that he is, took him at his word and thought (as he did before, in April before the election) that suddenly we weren't going to fund IPPF anymore.  Bev Oda's ministerial office had different ideas, however, and now Trost is crying to the media about how the government needs to stop being such a bunch of goddamn librul commie baby-killers.  The one good thing, of course, is that Canada's very own version of the Sun King, HRH Stephen Harper, runs a tight ship, and rarely lets such flagrant displays of contempt for the Party go unpunished.  Look for Trost to be given a prestigious new position, like Minister Of Snowflake Inventory in Resolute.

Coke CEO: Fuck Freedom, We Love Brutal Dictatorships!

Coca Cola CEO Muhtar Kent gave an interview to the Financial Times that outlined his, and thereby Coca Cola's, thoughts on recent world developments.  The U.S. is no longer business-friendly enough for the Atlanta-based multi-national, due to high rates of tax on overseas income (maybe they should hire GE's accountants),  the current economic situation (referred to by optimists as "dire") and the political instability generated by children in Washington D.C. also contribute to Kent's skittishness on American prospects.  Which nations would Kent prefer his corporation be a part of?  The corporation which this Fox News article praises as "All-American"?

China and Russia.

It might take a moment to sink in.  Coca-Cola loves the business environment fostered by China and Russia, so much so that the company plans on investing $3 billion into their Russian operations.  Apparently in these countries, "you see the kind of attention to detail about how business works and how business creates employment".  China certainly knows how to create a pro-business environment.  They definitely know how to balance corporate needs with labor conditions that just scream All-American.  Their political system certainly echos American values as well.  Russia, on the other hand, is a country that traded a corrupt, oppressive, inefficient Communist bureaucracy for a corrupt, oppressive, economically dynamic mafiocracy run by il capo Vladimir Putin.  They definitely know how to make the place friendly for anyone offering money, and lots of it.

So there you have it.  "All-American" Coca-Cola prefers to do business in countries unencumbered by petty things like "political freedom", "worker's rights", and "corporate taxes".  It's just easier, you know?

Back In Session, And Already...

Well, Parliament (such as it is) is finally back in session, and first up on the block is the precious omnibus crime bill, also known as the "Super Maximum Happy Criminal Busting Bill To Save Our Crime-Ridden Streets".  Now, for a bit of context (I know, a dirty word these days, but I'm a profane motherfucker at times), let's start by examining some stats on crime, courtesy of the CBC.


Crime in Canada has fallen to it's lowest level since 1973, a level it reached due to be constantly in decline since the early 1990s.  Overall reportings of criminal acts have declined 5% in the last year.  Homicides, already on a low, dropped 10% last year.  Ten.  Percent.  One-Tenth.  The murder rate hasn't been this low since 1966.  Property crimes (robbery, vandalism, arson, et al) are down 6%.  In fact, the only criminal category that has increased has been drug crime, up 10% and spearheaded by marijuana offences, which are up 14% in the last year (cocaine crimes, interestingly, were down 6%, and I'm going to bet that they're going to decline even further this year, for obvious reasons).  So, to sum up, all crime except pot offences are down.  Conservatives must be in charge.


So, into this heady maelstrom of historically low crime rates charges our new majority Conservative government.  Do they tell the police that they're doing a good job, great stuff, keep up the good work, maybe a small increase in the budget for pay raises and bonuses?  No.  Instead, they release a massive omnibus of nine bills that were tabled before the election.  Alright, you say, well, there's always room for improvement.  To which I say:  I don't know if you can call this improvement.  


So what do they want, these humourless red-staters in blue logos?  Oh, nothing much.  First and most importantly, of course, they want to increase mandatory minimum sentences on a host of crimes.  Wait, you say.  Haven't we proven that mandatory minimum sentence rules are counter-productive and do not act as a deterrent to serious crime?  Well, you're right.  As that last link shows, even the Canadian Criminal Justice Association thinks that it's a terrible idea.  Don't tell the Conservatives, though, since ideology rather obviously trumps common sense and logic.  So, regardless of critically thought-out opinions by experts, we're going to follow the example of the U.S. "War On Drugs", a socio-political war of which we've had ample time to observe the abject failure.  The increase in mandatory minimum sentencing is explained by the Conservatives as factoring in "security, health, and safety concerns arising from marijuana grow ops".  Not to sound like a dirty hippie, or anything, but if the cost of marijuana grow-ops is such a concern then perhaps a cheaper (lucrative, even) solution would be simply to legalize and tax it.  


And yet more...house arrest will be eliminated as a sentence.  To be fair, it was a gigantic problem in this country.  Mass murderers were allowed to be kept at home, where they were fed three meals a day by the state and allowed to go online and taunt everyone with pictures of themselves drinking mai tais nude.  


Soon you will be allowed to sue organizations or foreign governments for committing acts of terrorism!  Somehow I don't see this as workable, but perhaps that's just me.  I'm still going to launch my lawsuit against the U.S. for foisting pop-country music on us.  


Stripper's rights!  Well, strengthening of laws preventing the exploitation of people smuggled in to be stippers, sex workers and cheap labour.  Still, had another party floated this idea it would have drowned in a sea of "they want rights for strippers and prostitutes?  Har har har!", a la the great Howard Moscoe controversy.  


Last mentioned but not least considered are the greatly strengthened cyber-laws, which will allow the government to requisition the online activities of citizens from their ISPs without warrants or cause.  The government can find out what you're up to simply by forcing your ISP to hand over information, with no recourse.  The ISPs themselves will have to install government-mandated surveillance equipment and pay for it themselves make you pay for it through increased service costs.  


Will any of this help with the problems still remaining in the justice system?  Likely not.  The real concern, though, is not whether these bills will lower the already-low crime rate, but rather how much they will cost.  One bill that is being presented is the elimination of the so-called "2 for 1" provision that moves criminals through the incarceration system faster by offering credit for time served and the amount of time awaiting trial.  Vic Toews, our Public Safety Minister, estimated in April of 2010 that the cost of eliminating the program would be $90 million - not exactly what I want my tax dollars spent on, but not enough for me to get really incensed about.  Two months later, under journalistic pressure, he admitted that the real cost would be about $2 billion.  Now, September of 2011, analysts have revealed that the cost would be closer to $2.3 billion.  To implement one provision of this massive failure of an omnibus.  Normally, that's the sort of budgetary games-playing and massive cost-overrun that has vocal conservatives flying off the handle and voting in droves.  This will likely be considered A-OK, though, and for a very simple, one-word reason.  Hypocrisy.


How much WILL this all cost?  One thing I know is, if you ask the government they'll tell you the absolute minimum figure that they can get away with and still look somewhat sane (the "fantasy figure").  This number will in no way correspond with reality.  The next question would naturally be "how in hell do they plan on paying for not only the implementation of these bills but for the upgrades to the infrastructure of the correctional system so that we can house all of these new criminals that they're creating?"  The answer:  who knows?  The government is not exactly creating new revenue streams (tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts), so either they're planning on running up the debt (something Conservatives talk about as if it were like killing children but engage in wholesale in practice) or they want to import America's oh-so-fun for-profit prison industry.  


Think Canadians wouldn't be for it? Think again.  As one pithy citizen commenting on the Globe And Mail forums said, "The deficit should not be invoked as a reason to turn our backs on justice.  There are ways to pay for priority items.  We can afford to imprison more people if we cut CBC funding and arts grants.  The only interpretive dance that I want to see is the kind where the prisoner writhes around on the floor in pain after having tasted the boss man's billy club".  THAT'S the kind of Canadian that voted Conservative, folks!  Take a good long look in the mirror and ask yourself if that's you, or if it represents your values.  It sure as hell doesn't reflect mine.  


Is it any wonder, then, that the Conservative government wants to significantly reduce the time allowed to debate all of these bills?  They don't want the full details read and debated.  They just want to ram their ideology down the throats of the 61% majority that didn't vote for them.  As MP Mark Strahl tweeted snottily recently:  "Get used to it".  

05/02/2011

YOU GAVE THIS MAN A MAJORITY.  CONGRATULATIONS.  YOU GET EVERYTHING YOU DESERVE.  TRUST ME, I WILL BE THERE TO WHISPER 

"I TOLD YOU SO".  

EVERY.  SINGLE.  TIME.